I've said this a few times before on this blog, I'm sure. But I do so judge a book by its cover. That might not be right. Or fair to the writing. Particularly if the author hasn't had total control over the final design of that cover (traditionally published) or struggles to find the resources to hire a great cover artist (self-published).
But I am totally sucked in (or totally put off) a book by what it looks like. And I don't think I'm alone.
So I'm back doing what I did some years back which was to trawl through the latest releases on Amazon Kindle (they aren't paying me, I wish. I haven't even got affiliate links sorted out, folks) in the past 30 days and grabbing a few of my favorites, which you can see in composite (in no particular order) above. In this case, I filtered specifically on Contemporary Romance, as I'm doing my own tiny bit of market research.
The things that typically make me want to read the back cover copy:
- Font choice and use of font (see above, 'There Was This Boy')
- Color (see above, 'Love You', 'Lost and Found'
- Balance of text/image (see above, 'Romy and Juliet', 'Wall of Flowers')
- Novelty (have I seen this a million times before? See above, 'Dateless' - interesting camera angle)
- Tie between the image and title that isn't the usual generic clinch/abs that gives me a stronger sense of the contents (see above, 'Love Unleashed', First Time Player')
...among other things my subconscious is most certainly doing on my behalf that I have no clue about :)
